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This study examined time-management and self-care coping techniques that multiple-role women use and their relation to self-reported levels of distress, stress, and marital adjustment. The subjects (JV = 69) were married, had at least one child under the age of 12, and were employed outside the home for more than 20 hr per week. Subjects completed a demographic questionnaire, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Derogatis Stress Profile, and the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Test. In addition, subjects participated in a 15-min structured interview designed to assess number, type, and frequency of use of time-management and self-care coping strategies. Results of the study indicated that the number, type, and frequency of use of coping strategies were significantly related to self-reported levels of distress, stress, and particularly marital adjustment. Further analysis of high and low scorers on the marital-adjustment test revealed significant differences between the groups on measures of distress and coping. Subjects in the high-niarital-adjustment group had significantly lower levels of distress, employed a greater number of coping strategies, and reported greater frequency of use of coping strategies than subjects in the low-marital-adjustment group.An important gender-related issue in counseling psychology involves the relation between distress, stress, marital adjustment, and coping strategies. Women and men respond to stressors with different distress reactions and coping strategies. Women, on the whole, report more distress than men, even though there is no evidence that women are exposed to a greater number of stressors than men (Kessler, 1979;Russo, 1985). Thus, exposure to the same kinds of stressors and frequency of occurrence seem to have a different effect depending on gender. Some researchers have concluded that much of the gender difference is attributable to differences in appraisal of stressors and in differences in coping strategies (Kessler, McLeod, & Wethington, 1985). Women, for example, are more likely than men to appraise interpersonal events such as those occurring within the marital relationship as stressful. Women also appear to cope less effectively with stressors than men and, in fact, in some instances to employ passive coping strategies that may exacerbate rather than reduce distress (Billings & Moos, 1981;Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). An analysis of particular coping strategies used by women is important because there is some relation between the type of coping strategy one uses and the degree to which a stressor results in actual distress. This relationship has been found to be particularly important in the marital domain (Pearlin & Schooler).For women who are married with children and also employed outside of the home, the marital relationship can be a potentially even greater stressor. Two-career couples have the highest rate of divorce in the United States. Lack of time for spouse, lack of emotional support, and competition between

This study assessed the effects of four primary components of the microcounseling training model in the acquisition of a counseling strategy. The four training components investigated were (a) written and video models; (b) roleplay practice; (c) peer feedback; and (d) role-play remediation practice. Forty beginning graduate students in counseling were assigned randomly to the following four treatment conditions: modeling; modeling and practice; modeling, practice, and feedback; and modeling, practice, feedback, and remediation. Written pretest, posttest, and retention test measures and posttest and retention test role-play interview measures were obtained of the dependent variable-the developing goals counseling strategy. On the written measures, the performance of all four groups increased significantly from pretest to posttest and from pretest to retention test. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that all groups performed equally well on the posttest roleplay interview. A repeated measures ANOVA on the role-play posttest and retention interviews indicated no significant differences between treatment groups or across trials.

This study investigated the effects of three prepracticum counselor training approaches on counselor performance: T group, behavioral skills, and discussion control. Pre‐ and postmeasures consisting of 30‐minute video‐recorded counseling interviews were administered to all subjects. Counselor performance was evaluated by client completion of the Counseling Evaluation Inventory (CEI) and by three trained judges' ratings of four five‐minute interview segments using the Counseling Strategies Checklist (CSC). Data from each instrument were subjected to a 3 × 2 factorial analysis of variance. A significant group × time interaction occurred for the CEI. Significant time effects occurred on four of the seven dependent variables of the CSC. The results of the study have implications for both the length and type of training approach used in effective counselor education practices.